Acquisition Information

Dr. Edward H. Peeples, Jr. is Emeritus Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine and Community Health at Virginia Commonwealth
University where he taught for more than thirty years. Peeples made most of his academic contributions in the fields of medical
behavioral science, public health, epidemiology and sociology. But much of his research and writing dealt with contemporary
issues of social justice and he spent most of his adult life as a civil rights advocate involved in a variety of human rights
reforms in Virginia and other places across the south.

Born in Richmond on 20 April 1935, Peeples received a B.S. in Health and Physical Education from Richmond Professional Institute
(now VCU) in 1957. He began his civil rights activity in 1955 while a student at RPI. In late 1959, soon after being discharged
from the US Navy, he became a volunteer with the American Friends Service Committee in Prince Edward County, Virginia which
had closed its public schools rather than racially integrate them. In February 1960, he participated in the first of Richmond's
lunch counter sit-ins. He later did extensive field work and interviewing in Prince Edward which led to his Masters thesis,
A Perspective on the Prince Edward County Virginia School Issue, at the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. From this he produced
several documents, some of which were later incorporated into reports and briefings for the United States Commission on Civil
Rights; the U.S. Department of Justice; and the U.S. Office of Education in their efforts to find a resolution to the Prince
Edward County school closing issue.

Peeples received a M.A. in Human Relations (Intergroup Relations) from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963; and a Ph.D.
from the University of Kentucky in Sociology with a Concentration in Medical Behavioral Science in 1972. He began his teaching
career at the Medical College of Virginia and the Richmond Professional Institute in 1963, prior to their merger in 1968 forming
Virginia Commonwealth University. During his long academic career, Dr. Peeples taught, conducted research, consulted and published
in the fields of medical behavioral science (behavioral factors governing clinical practice in the helping professions), behavioral
epidemiology (behavioral causes, complications and consequences of disease, injury and disability), public health and community
medicine, violence prevention, research methodology, intergroup relations (including race and ethnic relations and minority
health), and sociology.

He was appointed by the Richmond City Council in the early 1980s to the Commission on Human Relations where he was elected
both Vice-Chair and Chairman and also was appointed to the Richmond Environmental Commission in the early 1990s. Since his
retirement in October 1995, Peeples has continued his efforts to help document the struggle for Civil Rights in Virginia and
has worked with historians, researchers, numerous repositories, and with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission of the Virginia
General Assembly. He is married and has four daughters and two grandchildren.

The Papers of Dr. Edward H. Peeples, Jr. document his long career in education and public health and in his activities as
a promoter of social justice in a variety of human rights reforms in Virginia and other places across the south. The collection
is especially strong in the areas of race and discrimination, poverty, public health and school inequality from the 1950s
through the 1980s including materials relating to the closing of public schools in Virginia's Prince Edward County. Other
subject areas include the early history of Virginia Commonwealth University (1967-early 1970s) and various programs associated
with the University, human relations in Richmond and Virginia, and the aftermath of Hurricane Camille (1969). The materials
in the collection include a large of amount of correspondence, reports, and publications. Also included in the collection
are newspaper and journal clippings, photographs (many of Prince Edward County and other areas in Virginia taken by Peeples),
slides, phonographs, and other materials. The bulk of the collection dates from 1950s through 2005.

Researchers should also consult the finding aid for an earlier but much smaller collection donated by Peeples to Special Collections
and Archives, M 68. This collection also consists of Dr. Peeples' studies in the field of hunger, poverty, and racial issues
in the United States and abroad (South Africa). There is considerable information on the fight for integration in Virginia
in the 1960s, including materials associated with the Prince Edward County school issue in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The collection is arranged into four series consisting of Professional and Biographical (materials related to Dr. Peeples' work as a research professor), Broad Subject Areas (thirteen major topics randing from race to preventative medicine), Miscellaneous Topics, and Miscellaneous audio and visual materials (slides, audio and video recordings, phonographs, photographs), publications, ephemera,
and oversize materials.

African American Studies Program at VCU, Part I, Edward Peeples,
[Includes materials related to the founding of the program and a class taught by Vincent Wright and Peeples called "Sociology
of Racism"
1969-1971

Your Schools - South Carolina Community Relations Program American Friends Service Committee,
1974

Box 20

Folder 34

"Youth, Justice and Social Change" seminar attended by Peeples and international students
in Rodica, Yugoslavia, July 15-30, 1968 - includes postcards from Yugoslavia, list of attendees, and photographs of participants,
including Peeples
1968

Box 21

Folder 1

Allen, Theodore William, Article and Program for Memorial Service,
October 8, 2005

Slides for Peeples' class lectures - each slide has a number given to it by Peeples that corresponds with an index card with
information about the slide. Subjects include "Defining Disease," "MCV Cancer Rehab. Program/Evaluation," "Stress Impact
Study/Methodology," "Health Behavior," and "Violence Prevention."
c. 1970s-1980s

Box 23

Folder 1

Slides for Peeples' class lectures - each slide has a number given to it by Peeples that corresponds with an index card with
information about the slide. Subjects include "Defining Disease," "MCV Cancer Rehab. Program/Evaluation," "Stress Impact
Study/Methodology," "Health Behavior," and "Violence Prevention."
c. 1970s-1980s

Box 24

Folder 1

Song Book - Sing Kentucky (traditional songs), 96 pp paper
n.d.,

Box 24

Folder 2

Song Book - Bound for Glory - 101 Woody Guthrie Songs,
1977

Box 24

Folder 3

Sheet Music - We Shall Overcome and Lift Every Voice and Sing,
c. early 1960s

Box 24

Folder 4

Sheet Music - Somewhere, We Shall Not Be Moved, and I'm On My Way to Freedom Land (1 page
song sheet),
c. early 1960s

Box 24

Folder 5

Sheet Music - Blowin' in the Wind (1 page song sheet),
c. early 1960s

Box 24

Folder 6

Sheet Music - We Shall Overcome, The Hammer Song, and This Land is Your Land,
n.d.

The East Virginia Toadsuckers, The worst of..., Bill Roper Recording Fan Studio
[Richmond, Virginia, members of this group were VCU professors.], [phonograph, 33 RPM],
n.d.

Box 25

Folder 4

The Dixieland Express, Out of the Rain, recorded at Bias Recording Studio, Springfield,
and group from Danville, [phonograph, 33 RPM],
1987

Box 25

Folder 5

Mountain Folk Song Concert Bluegrass Style, with the Stanley Brothers, Carl Story and others, Palace, [includes, according
to Peeples, "the riotously funny "My Get Up and Go" (has got up and went) by Jack Campbell"], [phonograph, 33 RPM],
circa early 1960s

Box 25

Folder 6

JD Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys, Bluegrass Holiday, King Bluegrass Records, [Peeples used to go see this group in
Lexington in the middle 1960s], [phonograph, 33 RPM],
circa 1970s

Rosenkranz, Otto H. Interstate Migration of the Native White Population and Native
Non-White Population According to the United States Census of 1950-1940-1930 Mississippi.
Sexual Assault Crisis Centers in Virginia. Virginians Aligned Against Sexual Assault
(VAASA): Charlottesville, FY 1994
1994